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Her Story
Her Story is an indie interactive movie video game written and directed by Sam Barlow. It was released on June 24, 2015 on Microsoft Windows, iOS, and OS X, and was released on Android a day later. In the game, players search through a database of video clips from fictional police interviews to solve the case of a murder. The game is Barlow's first project since his departure from Climax Studios, after which he became independent. He wanted to develop a game that was dependent on the narrative, and avoided working on the game until he was settled on an idea that was possible to execute. Barlow eventually decided to create a police procedural game, and incorporate live action footage. He conducted research for the game by watching existing police interviews. Upon doing so, he discovered recurring themes in the suspects' answers, and decided to incorporate ambiguity to the investigation in the game. At release, Her Story was acclaimed by many reviewers, with praise particularly directed at the narrative, character performance, and unconventional gameplay mechanics. The game has sold over 100,000 copies, and was nominated for multiple year-end accolades, including Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications. Gameplay As the game begins, the players are presented with an old desktop, which the player can use to search through a database of fictional police interviews while trying to solve the case. Players can also find instructional text files aside the program which explain the game's mechanics. A "L.O.G.I.C Database" program can be opened, allowing players to search and sort video clips within the database. Each interview focuses on a woman named Hannah Smith, the wife of the murdered man, who answers questions to an off-screen detective. The interviews cannot be watched in their entirety. Hannah's answers are transcribed, and players find clips by searching in the database for words from the transcriptions, attempting to solve the case by piecing together information. As players select clips, they can enter user tags, which are then available as searchable terms. One of the files on the desktop is a database checker, which allows players to review the amount of clips that have been viewed; as a clip is viewed, the red box in the database checker changes to green. The desktop also features the minigame Mirror Game, based on the strategy board game Reversi. Plot The interview tapes feature a woman who introduces herself as Hannah Smith (Viva Seifert), whose husband, Simon, has gone missing, and is later found murdered. Hannah admits that the two had a difficult relationship, but has an alibi placing her in Glasgow at the time after an argument. As more pieces of the interviews are discovered, it is revealed that "Hannah" is actually two women: Hannah and Eve, identical twins separated at birth by the midwife. The twins were unaware of each other's existence until years later, at which point they decided to act as a single person, keeping a common diary and a set of rules defining their actions as "Hannah". Hannah eventually began dating Simon, whom she met at a glazier where they both work. Despite their rules, Hannah sleeps with Simon and becomes pregnant, which upsets Eve, who makes an effort to get pregnant but is unable to do so; Hannah miscarries in the eighth month. Years later, Simon meets Eve in a bar. The two begin an affair, and Eve becomes pregnant; by this time, Hannah is infertile. On their birthday, Simon gives a handmade mirror to Hannah, but they have an argument, and Hannah reveals that she has a sister who is pregnant; Simon realises he is the father. The following day, Eve has an argument and flees to Glasgow. Hannah, wearing Eve's wig, confronts Simon. Unaware that she is Hannah, Simon gifts her another mirror. Hannah becomes furious, shattering the mirror and accidentally lodging it in Simon's throat, killing him. When Eve returns, the two agree to hide Simon's body, and use Eve's trip to Glasgow as an alibi. At the end of the interview, Eve notes that Hannah is "gone",10 and asks to speak to a lawyer. As players uncover enough of the story, a chat window appears asking if they are finished. Once players answer affirmatively, it is revealed that they are Sarah, Eve's daughter. The chat asks Sarah if she understands her mother's actions, and asks to meet her outside. Development Her Story was developed by Sam Barlow, who previously worked on games such as Silent Hill: Origins (2007) and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (2009) at Climax Studios. Barlow had conceived the idea of a police procedural game while working at Climax Studios, but decided to become independent to create the game, in order to develop a game that is "deep on story". He became frustrated by publishers using kitchen sink realism as the reason behind rejecting game pitches, and found that becoming independent allowed him to create his own game of the sort. He also wished to become independent after playing games like Year Walk (2013) and 80 Days (2014). Barlow avoided development until he had an idea that was possible to execute. "I could probably quite easily have gone and made an exploration horror game ... but I kind of knew that there would be big compromises there because of budget," he said. Barlow spent his savings to work on the game, allowing him a year of development time. He followed through with the concept of Her Story, as it focused on an "intimate setting, dialogue and character interaction", which he found was often dismissed in larger titles. Barlow felt particularly inspired to develop Her Story after seeing the continuous support of his 1999 game Aisle. When referring to how Her Story challenges typical game conventions, Barlow compares it to the Dogme 95 filmmaking movement, and Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film Rope. Her Story was approved through Steam Greenlight, and was crowdfunded by Indie Fund. It was released on 24 June 2015 for Microsoft Windows, OS X and iOS. Barlow wanted to launch the game on all platforms simultaneously, as he was unsure where the audience would be. "If I'd just gone for just one I'd have lost a lot of the potential audience," he commented. Barlow found that playing Her Story on mobile devices is a "'sofa' experience". He also noted that it felt "natural" for it to be released on mobile devices, as they are regularly used to watch videos and search the internet; similar tasks are used as gameplay mechanics in Her Story. The iPhone's smaller pixel size of 640×480 as opposed to 800×600 led to Barlow's doubts of a release on the platform, but he was influenced to release it upon receiving positive feedback through testing. As development neared completion, the game underwent testing, which allowed Barlow to "balance some aspects" and "polish items together". An Android version was released on 29 June 2016. Her Story runs on the Unity game engine. Gameplay design Barlow's immediate idea was to create a game involving police interviews, but he "didn't know exactly what that meant". He then conceived the idea to involve real video footage, and the ability to access the footage through a database interface; he described the interface as being "part Apple II, part Windows 3.1 and part Windows 98". The interface design was inspired by Barlow's appreciation of the police procedural genre, commenting that "the conceit of making the computer itself a prop in the game was so neat". He also compared the searching mechanic to the Google search engine, and wanted to "run with the idea" that players are "essentially Googling". The game's concept was inspired by the TV series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999), which Barlow found depicted police interviews being a "gladiatorial arena for detectives". Barlow intentionally made the game's opening screen to be "slightly too long", to immediately notify players of the slow pacing that would follow. Inspiration to work on Her Story stemmed from Barlow's disappointment of other detectives games: he felt that L.A. Noire (2011) never allowed him to feel like "the awesome detective who was having to read things and follow up threads of investigation", and he called the Ace Attorney series (2001–present) "rigidity". When Barlow began development on Her Story, he added more typical game aspects, but the game mechanics became more minimalist as development progressed. The initial plan for the game was for players to work towards a definitive resolution, ultimately solving the crime. However, when Barlow tested the concept on pre-existing interview transcripts of convicted murderer Christopher Porco, he began to discover themes surfacing within the interviews, particularly relating to the concept of money, which was ultimately a large factor in Porco's trial.29 He took this concept of recurring themes and threads, and decided to "move beyond the clearly scripted stuff" when developing Her Story. Barlow felt that the story's appeal was the ambiguity of the investigation, comparing Her Story to the podcast Serial (2014–present), which he listened to late in development. He found that the attraction of Serial was the lack of a definitive solution, noting that "people lean towards certain interpretations ... what makes it interesting is the extent to which it lives on in your imagination". Story and characters Barlow decided to feature live action footage in the game after becoming frustrated with his previous projects, particularly with the technical challenge of translating an actor's performance into a game engine. Barlow set out to work with an actor on Her Story, having enjoyed the process while working at Climax Studio, albeit with a larger budget. He contacted Viva Seifert, whom he had intermittently worked with on Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun for a year, before its cancellation. He felt that Seifert is "very good at picking up a line and intuitively pulling a lot of the subtext into her performance", which led him to believe that she was "perfect" for the role in Her Story. When Barlow asked Seifert to audition, he sent her a 300-page script, which he managed to reduce to 80 pages, by altering font size, as well as some dialogue; she accepted the role. Seifert began to feel pressure midway through filming, when she realised that "the whole game is hinging" on her performance. She described the shoot as "intense" and "rather exhausting", and felt as if she was "subtly being scrutinised" by Barlow, which helped her performance. Barlow also felt that the intensity helped Seifert's performance, taking cues from director Alfred Hitchcock, who would upset his actors in order to achieve the greatest performance. Seifert felt that there were small nuances in her performance that may have "added some twists and turns" for players that Barlow had not anticipated. The game's seven police interviews were filmed roughly in chronological order over five days, in a process that Barlow called "natural". Barlow travelled to Seifert's home county of Cornwall to film. He felt that finding the locations for the interrogation rooms was the simplest part of production, because "everywhere has crappy looking rooms", with footage being recorded in a council building in Truro. When filming was complete, Barlow wanted to give the impression that the videos had been recorded in 1994, but found digital filters were unable to capture this time frame appropriately. Instead, he recorded the footage through two VHS players to create imperfections in the video before digitising the video into the game. Barlow played the part of the detectives during filming, asking scripted questions to Seifert's character, but is never featured in Her Story. When watching police interviews for research, Barlow found himself empathising with the interviewee, which inspired him to exclude the detective from the game. He stated that the interviews typically feature "double betrayal", in which the detectives are "pretending to be the best friend". Barlow felt that removing the detective from the game empowers Seifert's character, allowing players to empathise. When conducting research for Her Story, Barlow looked at the case regarding the murder of Travis Alexander, which made him consider the manner that female murder suspects are treated in interrogations, stating that they "tend to be fetishised, more readily turned into archetypes". This was further proved to Barlow when studying the interviews of Casey Anthony and Amanda Knox; he found that media commentary often ignored the evidence of the investigation, instead focusing on the expressions of the suspects during the interviews. Barlow conducted further research by studying texts about psychology, and the use of language. Audio When searching for music to use in Her Story, Barlow looked for songs that sounded "slightly out-of-time". He ultimately used eight tracks from musician Chris Zabriskie, and found that his music invoked nostalgia, and had a "modern edge". He felt that the music "highlights the gap between the 'fake computer world'" and the game. The "emotional intensity" of the clips also influences the music changes in Her Story. Barlow also intended to feature a song for Seifert to sing in some of the clips that fit within the game. He settled on the murder ballad "The Twa Sisters", which he felt would trigger the mythical elements of the game. Seifert and Barlow both altered the ballad, to fit the game. Barlow intended for the sound design to be "all about authenticity". He used an old keyboard to provide sound effects for the computer, using stereo panning for the keys to have the correct 3D position in playback. Sequel In January 2016, Barlow confirmed that a sequel was in development, under the working title Her Story 2. Barlow considered it a "spiritual successor" to Her Story, with a narrative unrelated to the first game, though it will continue to use full-motion video as its central gameplay element.